Spotlight on: David Langford, Editor and Writer

David Langford (http://ansible.co.uk) has published over 30 books, 80 short stories and many hundreds of essays, reviews and magazine columns. He has won 28 Hugos, many for his long-running SF newsletter Ansible and once for best short story. Langford’s most popular novel is the nuclear farce The Leaky Establishment (1984), based on his years as a weapons physicist. Short fiction is collected in He Do the Time Police in Different Voices (2003) and Different Kinds of Darkness (2004); his latest non-fiction collection is Starcombing (2009). He is working with John Clute and others on a new edition of the Encyclopedia of SF.

Why did you start publishing Ansible in the first place?
No special initiative or idealism, alas. Peter Roberts, editor of the 1970s British SF/fan newsletter Checkpoint, decided 100 issues were enough and instructed me to take over in 1979, with the old subscriber list but a new title which of course I stole from Ursula Le Guin. If only I’d had the sense to stop at 100. Number 287 is looming as I write…

How has the fanzine field changed since you began Ansible in the ’70s? Are things better, worse, or just different?
Better in that online publishing can reach a wide audience without huge printing and postage costs, while production values have improved no end since the hand-cranked mimeo days. Worse, or just different, in that the field has become so intricately subdivided, impossible to address as a whole (I remember when a fanzine or convention devoted solely to Star Trek was a strange and wondrous novelty). As so many have remarked, science fiction’s conquest of the world through media success means it’s no longer ‘‘a proud and lonely thing to be a fan.’’ Journalists may still sneer at us – Ansible tracks the more egregious examples – but are nervously aware that they’re generalizing about an awful lot of people.

You were a nominee for the Best Fan Writer Hugo for over 30 years straight, and a multiple winner. What’s the secret of your success?
I got my start through chronic deafness: the gossip I misheard was generally funnier than the real thing. More seriously, Ansible tries to spice news with entertainment, mixing dull but worthy award listings with departments like As Others See Us, which highlights journalistic excesses, and Thog’s Masterclass with its examples of ‘‘differently good’’ genre prose. Something to annoy everybody.

This Spotlight feature appeared in the August 2011 issue of Locus Magazine.

Cover Design: Arnie Fenner

US/Canada readers may purchase this print issue for $6.95 + $3 shipping — click on this PayPal button to order.

You may also order a digital version of this issue for $5.50:

Overseas readers — please query Locus@locusmag.com, or phone at (510) 339-9198, to send a check or place a credit card order for a print version of this issue. (Or, Subscribe.)